Billy Ruffian

EIGHT The Bay of Cadiz 1797

On 30 May 1797 the Bellerophon arrived in the Bay of Cadiz and joined the fleet of British ships blockading the port. The main body of the fleet was anchored in an extended line across the entrance of the bay but the Bellerophon was ordered to join the Advanced Squadron which was positioned some way ahead of the main fleet, close to the walls of the ancient city. Under a cloudless blue sky she worked her way across the choppy waters of the bay towards the four ships of the Advanced Squadron. When she was level with them she dropped anchor in 11 fathoms. Ahead lay Cadiz, shimmering in the heat of the summer afternoon. Situated at the end of a promontory, the city was protected by an encircling wall and several forts. Above the wall could be seen the tiled rooftops of houses, and the towers and domes of numerous churches and grand civic buildings. In the harbour beside the city walls were thirty Spanish warships, their colourful red and orange flags extended in the fresh breeze, the nearest of the ships almost within gunshot.

For two days the crew of the Bellerophon were kept busy carrying out minor repairs and taking on board water and provisions — including several basketloads of lemons, and six live bullocks. On the third day the ship's log noted that 'Rear Admiral Nelson came on board and mustered the ship's company.' Nelson had been given command of the Advanced Squadron and, although this was the only time that he set foot on the decks of the Bellerophon, the ship's fortunes were to be closely linked with his during the course of the next few years. Nelson was already a legend in the British Navy and the crew would have been intensely curious to see him. He was now thirty-eight years old. Since the siege of Toulon in 1793 he had made his mark as a ruthless and formidable commander in battle, and had begun to achieve the celebrity which he craved and believed was his destiny.

While taking part in the siege of Calvi on the coast of Corsica in 1794 he had been wounded and blinded in his right eye. The pupil was now a hazy blue colour and although he simply regarded it as one of the hazards of war, he could barely distinguish light from darkness with that eye, and admitted that 'as to all the purpose of use it is gone.' His hair was flecked with grey and his face was lined and gaunt, but he still had a restless energy. He had also acquired an air of command. He had, after all, been a full captain since the age of twenty and had recently demonstrated the fighting qualities which were to make his name famous throughout Europe.

In 1795, while in command of the 64-gun Agamemnon, he had engaged the Ça Ira, an 84-gun French ship, and had kept up such a devastating fire on her that she subsequently surrendered, with the loss of 400 men killed and wounded. And then on 14 February 1797 he had played a spectacular role in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. As the British fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jervis, was going into action against a Spanish fleet off the south-west coast of Spain, Nelson had disobeyed orders by swinging his ship, the Captain, out of the line of battle in order to hold apart the two Spanish divisions, an action which directly contributed to the subsequent British victory. After coming under fire from seven Spanish ships, Nelson had rammed the San Nicolas, boarded her, and forced her surrender. Another Spanish ship, the San Joseph, had become entangled with the San Nicolas. Nelson shouted 'Westminster Abbey or victory!' and led a boarding party onto her quarterdeck where 'extravagant as the story may seem, did I receive the swords of the vanquished Spaniards . . . The Victory passing saluted us with three cheers, as did every ship in the fleet.'

When the news reached England, that a British fleet had defeated a Spanish force of almost double its strength, there was general rejoicing and Nelson was rewarded with a knighthood. His father, who was staying in Bath, reflected the mood of many when he wrote, 'The name and services of Nelson have sounded throughout the City of Bath from the common ballad-singer to the public theatre. Joy sparkles in every eye and desponding Britain draws back her sable veil and smiles.' Sir John Jervis was made an earl and became Lord St Vincent. A few weeks after the battle he had taken the British fleet south and commenced the blockade of Cadiz.

There is no record of the reaction of the Bellerophon's crew to Nelson's arrival on board, nor of his conversation with Captain Darby, but the marine artist Thomas Buttersworth painted a number of watercolours of the ships of the Advanced Squadron around this time which show the Bellerophon anchored alongside the Theseus, Nelson's flagship. Buttersworth was a seaman on one of the ships in the main body of the fleet under Lord St Vincent and although his pictures are strangely lacking in atmosphere they are full of carefully observed detail. The anchored ships of Nelson's squadron are beautifully drawn; he notes the boats moored alongside their sterns, and the longboats and cutters coming and going in the foreground. His pictures clearly show how close the squadron was to Cadiz. According to Nelson, 'We are looking at the ladies walking the walls and Mall of Cadiz and know of the ridicule they make of their sea officers.'

Compared to the hazardous job of patrolling the seas off Brest, the blockade of Cadiz should have been a relatively easy task but St Vincent imposed a strict regime and with good reason. He and his fellow officers were aware that there was unrest among the sailors of the fleet, much of it inspired by news of the two fleet mutinies which had recently taken place in home waters - the most serious in the navy's history. With the nation at war and under threat of invasion from France, such rebellion could have had the most disastrous consequences. There was much talk of the mutineers being influenced by the French Revolution and some may have been, but the British sailors' demands were much more basic than the republican ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The grievances on the list drawn up by the sailors of the Channel fleet at Spithead on 17 April 1797 were entirely concerned with their pay, food and conditions. The pay of seamen in the Royal Navy had remained unchanged since 1653 and was fixed at 24 shillings a lunar month for able seamen and 19 shillings for ordinary seamen. Merchant sea captains in the Pool of London were offering wages of £3. 15s. a month around this time and a private in a cavalry regiment earned £3 a calendar month. In addition to an increase in pay, the sailors wanted better food and the full rations to which they were entitled; they wanted shore leave when ships returned to port so they could see their families (most captains refused shore leave on the grounds that their crews inevitably included large numbers of pressed men who were likely to desert); and they wanted better treatment and pay for men who were sick or wounded.

Senior officers in the navy were generally sympathetic to the men's requests and within eight days the Admiralty agreed to all the demands, but when the fleet was ordered to sea on 7 May, the men refused to obey their officers because they did not believe the promises that had been made. An Act of Parliament was hastily passed, and on 14 May Lord Howe arrived at Portsmouth with the news that all the men's demands would be met and a pardon would be provided for the Spithead mutineers. The jubilant sailors carried Howe on their shoulders to the governor's house and later manned the yards of their ships in celebration as he was rowed through the fleet.

Unrest had also spread among the ships anchored at the Nore. In addition to the concessions made to the men at Spithead (which had been extended to the whole navy by the Act of Parliament), the Nore seamen wanted a more equal distribution of prize money, the payment of arrears of wages before ships went to sea, and the removal of the harshest of the Articles of War. The mutiny at the Nore began on 12 May and rapidly extended to most of the ships in the Medway as well as the North Sea fleet along the coast at Yarmouth. The mutineers tarred and feathered several officers, looted local fishing boats and farms, and began intercepting shipping on the Thames with the aim of blockading London. However, when the government began to set up shore batteries and brought up warships with loyal crews, the mutiny rapidly collapsed. Officers resumed command of their ships, and Richard Parker, the leader of the mutiny, was handed over to the authorities. This time there was no mercy for the mutineers. Richard Parker and thirty-five other seamen were hanged.

The Bellerophon had been anchored in the Bay of Cadiz for nearly six weeks when an event took place which provoked a mutiny on one ship and might have led to a more general mutiny had it not been for the swift and uncompromising action taken by Lord St Vincent. Two young seamen from another ship in the fleet were charged with committing 'the unnatural and detestable sin of sodomy'. The court martial was held in the great cabin of the Prince George, a big three-decker of 90 guns. The two seamen had spent three days in confinement, and would have been only too aware that the punishment for breaching the Twentieth-ninth Article of War was death. After their cramped and gloomy quarters, confined in irons below deck, the atmosphere of the great cabin must have been extremely intimidating. They found themselves in an elegantly proportioned room filled with senior naval officers resplendent in their full dress uniforms with dark blue coats, white breeches and stockings, buckled shoes, and an impressive array of gold lace on sleeves and lapels. The room had a low, gently curving ceiling with the far wall almost entirely composed of windows. The sunlight streaming in through the curved arc of these stern windows was dazzling. It glistened on the polished mahogany chairs and tables, and on the gold epaulettes and brass buttons of the assembled officers. The president of the court was Charles Thompson, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and the captains included Cuthbert Collingwood, Thomas Troubridge, Sir Robert Calder and the Bellerophon's Henry Darby.

The first man to give evidence was Nicholas Tobin, the captain's coxswain of the St George, the 90-gun sister ship of the Prince George. He was sworn in and asked to relate what he knew of the business. He told the court that on the night of 27 June, between the hours of 9 and 10, he was on the main deck when seaman John Tipper came to him and said that there were two men connected together. Tobin told him to get a light and they went below to where they heard a man breathing very hard. This was in the area below the forecastle beside the door of the sick berth.

'I saw John Benson and Philip Francis laying with their trowsers down about their legs one hand fast held of John Benson's privates while several people standing by tried to get them up.' What happened next was described by John Tipper who was the next witness. For some reason Tipper had taken the light away for a few minutes and he recalled that, when he came back, he:

saw Philip Francis lying upon his belly and John Benson upon the top of him, making motions with his body as tho' he wished to have connections with him. I then went and laid hold of Philip Francis's jacket and said to him are you not ashamed to be laying here in this condition. He made me no answer at first, but muttered to himself. I then shook him again. He said, whats the matter, whats the matter, what are you about. I said get up. He made answer and said am I not in my hammock. No I said. Get up and button your trousers about you. He then got up and leaned his head against a hammock that was over him. I then said to Nicholas Tobin, go aft and report them to the officer of the watch.

Tobin went to see Mr Cuthbert and told him 'there was a very horrid thing committed in the ship that night'. They returned with the Master at Arms and the two men were put into confinement.

Other witnesses were called and repeated the same story. The court had to determine whether there was willing agreement and whether penetration had taken place. All the witnesses were asked the same question, 'Did you see they were connected one with another?' Tobin could not be certain, but Tipper said that to the best of his knowledge they were, and other witnesses confirmed this. The witnesses were also asked whether either of the accused men were drunk at the time. It transpired that Philip Francis was 'very much in liquor when he lay down there'. Indeed Francis's defence was that he was so drunk that he knew nothing of what had taken place.

The court was cleared, the assembled officers deliberated, and the prisoners were brought back into the great cabin. It was a solemn moment. Admiral Thompson told the two seamen that the court was of the opinion that the charge had been fully proved. Consequently it was agreed that they should be hanged by the neck until they were dead 'at the yard arm of such ship or ships of His Majesty and at such time or times as the Commander-in-chief shall direct.'

Lord St Vincent directed that they should be executed two days later from the yard-arm of their own ship. The Bellerophon's log-book entry for Sunday 2 July simply notes, At 7.30 AM sent two boats and armed with an officer in each to attend an execution of two seamen on board HM.Ship St George.' Later that day Lord St Vincent sat down in the great cabin of his flagship and dictated the following letter to the Secretary of the Admiralty in London:

Sir,

I enclose the sentence and minutes of a court-martial on two seamen, late belonging to His Majesty's ship St George. The crime of which they were convicted was of so horrible and detestable a nature, and the times requiring summary punishments, I caused the sentence to be carried into execution at nine o'clock this morning in presence of the whole squadron.

Within a week there were more hangings. The crew of the St George were discovered in a plot to mutiny and take over the ship. The mutineers' pretext was that they objected to the men convicted of sodomy being hanged on their ship but the truth seems to have been that they had been plotting mutiny for some months. At a court martial on 7 July, John Anderson, Michael McCann, John Hayes and James Fitzgerald were found guilty of 'seditiously, mutinously and traitorously conspiring to deprive Captain Peard and the rest of the officers of the St George of the command of the ship.' In fact the mutineers' plans had been foiled by a loyal member of the crew who had warned Captain Peard that the ship's company had been planning to seize the ship during the night. The four ringleaders had previous records which caused them to be seen as villains with notoriously bad characters. Michael McCann had served on a French privateer before being captured by a British warship. The other three had been guilty of desertion for which John Hayes had received 300 lashes.

Lord St Vincent was a hard man at the best of times, but with the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore uppermost in his mind, he decided to make an example of the entire crew of the St George by insisting that they hang their own shipmates. And to make sure that everyone understood the significance of this unusual procedure he issued a General Order to the entire fleet:

The sentence is to be carried into execution by the crew of the St George alone, and no part of the boats' crews of other ships, as is usual on similar occasions, is to assist in this most painful service, in order to mark the high sense the Commander-in-chief entertains of the loyalty, fidelity and subordination of the rest of the fleet, which he will not fail to make known to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and request them to lay it before the King. This memorandum is to be read to the ships companies of the fleet before the execution.

As a further break with tradition the commander-in-chief refused to allow the men a few days to prepare themselves for death and ordered them to be hanged on the day after the court martial, even though this meant the execution would take place on a Sunday. So at 7.30 am on Sunday 9 July the Bellerophon again sent two boats across the bay. In addition to the sailors pulling at the oars, each boat had an officer and two red-coated marines armed with muskets sitting in the stern. As they rowed out from under the shadow of their ship, the men could see boats from the other anchored ships setting out towards the St George. By the time all the boats were gathered around the disgraced ship, the men were sweating in the morning sun. On the forecastle of the St George the four condemned men were listening to the prayers of the ship's chaplain while their shipmates stood by the ropes which had been rigged from the lower yard-arm of the foremast. The crews of every one of the ships of the line, the frigates, cutters and naval supply ships gathered in the bay, were assembled to witness the execution. More than 15,000 officers and men stood in silence on the decks of their ships awaiting the signal. At exactly 9 o'clock a single gun was fired. As the explosion echoed across the bay four bodies were hauled rapidly into the air, their legs kicking briefly before they hung lifeless, swaying to and fro as the St George rocked slowly back and forth in the low swell.

In reporting the executions to the Admiralty later that day Lord St Vincent said that he hoped he would not be censured by the bench of bishops for profaning the Sabbath. Although he was the last man to care what a few bishops thought of his actions he was no doubt heartened to receive an approving letter from Nelson who had not been able to attend the court martial because he and the men of his squadron had to remain at their posts and keep a continuous watch on the Spanish ships. Nelson wrote to congratulate St Vincent on finishing the St George's business so speedily, 'even although it is Sunday. The particular situation of the service requires extraordinary measures. I hope this will end all the disorders in the fleet.' The severity of St Vincent's response to any sign of disaffection prevented a general mutiny on the scale of those at Spithead and the Nore but did not end the unrest. Further plots were discovered, the most serious being on the 74-gun ship Defence where the boatswain was planning to seize the ship at night and deliver her up to the Spanish in Cadiz harbour. In the six weeks following the hanging of the St Georges men there were four more executions before the sailors settled down and resumed their usual shipboard routine.

The routine and the confinement of shipboard life at anchor in the bay ended on 7 October when Lord St Vincent took the fleet to sea. They sailed north, rounded Cape St Vincent and dropped anchor in the River Tagus. From November through to the following May the log-book of the Bellerophon makes dreary reading. Those seven months were like a repeat of the endless cruises off Ushant. In company with a squadron of six or seven warships the Bellerophon patrolled the coast between Cape Trafalgar and Cape St Vincent. After two or three weeks at sea the squadron returned to the Bay of Cadiz or the River Tagus to take in provisions and carry out any repairs necessary and then headed off into the rolling swell of the Atlantic — until Friday 25 May 1798 when there was a new development which was to lead to momentous times ahead. On that day the Bellerophon left Cadiz for the last time and joined a squadron under the command of Captain Thomas Troubridge. Their orders were to sail into the Mediterranean and meet up with Nelson and the Vanguard. Their mission was to find Napoleon who was reported to have left Toulon in command of a vast fleet of transport ships, a huge army and an accompanying fleet of French warships.